This past Sunday evening I sat perched in Libe Café poring over Titus Andronicus and The War Between the Tates, and in the failing light I watched as half a dozen students lined the quad’s walkways with over a thousand black flags.

Witnessing these young people brave Ithaca’s brutal winter twilight warmed my heart, for in my naïveté I thought they were paying tribute to Black History Month.

Perhaps each black flag represented a fallen African American soldier in the Civil War or each African American imprisoned and murdered in the struggle for civil rights.